What’s the connection between a cycle and the education statistics of a state? Ask Pune-based Armene Modi who shows how the link works, says Huned Contractor

If it were not for the humble bicycle, Balutai Shinde, Jyoti Bhalerao, Archana Pachange and many other teenage girls of a village called Nimgaon Bhogi, located about 70 kilometres from Pune in Maharashtra, would never have dreamt of going to school. “By now, my parents would have been more concerned about finding a suitable match for me. Instead, they are now convinced that marriage can wait and that I must first complete my graduation,” says Jyoti.

Refusing a job offer from the Tata tea gardens in Munnar, Sudhanshu Kumar has worked on his mango orchard, making it a huge success.

It was around 21 years ago. Straight out of college, Mr. Sudhanshu Kumar had to make a choice. There were two roads before him: Either accept the job offer as a manager in a tea estate, or return to his village and look after his ancestral mango orchard. And he took the latter, the difficult, the less travelled one. And he had not made a mistake!

Just as ordinary coal becomes priceless diamonds, Govind Dholakia , a seventh class drop-out, who did not even own a pair of slippers till his 14th birthday, has set up a 1,625 crore diamond manufacturing firm.

Govindbhai Dholakia, founder of Shree Ramkrishna Exports, a a 1625 crore diamond manufacturing firm, in Surat, starts his day by visiting the school he has built for girls. On the ground floor of the five-storeyed school, Govindbhai meets people for his support that is needed by the students, widows, the sick and disabled. Students, irrespective of their religious background are required to learn by heart a passage from their religious text and funds are disbursed in accordance with the number of passages learnt. “One MBBS student has learnt almost 2/3 of the Bhagwad Gita by heart and as a result we cover most of his medical fees,” Govindbhai informs me with a twinkle in his eye.

There is something new to see on the gentle slopes of the Garhwal and Kumaon region, the sharp ragged gorges of Kulu and Lahaul in Himachal Pradesh, the pristine untouched beauty of Sikkim, the almost unexplored Arunachal Pradesh, the fantastic moonscapes of the Zanskar range in Jammu and Kashmir. The high altitude peaks of Nun-Kun Massif in Ladakh, Nanda Devi in Garhwal, and Dunagiri in Kumaon offer challenging peaks for mountaineering.